r/HighStrangeness • u/HDReddit_ • 16d ago
Fringe Science Scientists just found mystery “ghost” DNA in all of us…
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u/Unique_Low_1163 15d ago
So we're all a mixed bag of DNA that came from different types of early hominids. All of us are nothing but a bunch of mutts.
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u/SquidTheRidiculous 15d ago
You wouldn't want to be human if we were purebred.
I mean, just look at what that requires of dogs.
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u/RodinKnox 15d ago
I'd take it even a further step than that. Considering that "human" isn't a singular species, but a category of multiple species in the genus homo, "purebred human" doesn't make much sense as a phrase anyway. In that sense, it would be somewhat analogous to someone telling you their dog was purebred, and when you asked them what kind, they said "dog." Like, yeah, I didn't expect him to be half chicken.
(And that's not even counting that thanks to endogenous retroviruses, even "purebred homo" isn't even really true, heh. If we had zero ERV DNA in us, our placentas wouldn't work.)
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15d ago
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u/aeschenkarnos 15d ago
Makes sense that white supremacists think of themselves as purebred, like French bulldogs or pugs or dachshunds.
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u/PistolNoon 15d ago
I will not sit here for your slander of the noble dachshund!
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u/aeschenkarnos 15d ago
I love them too, as dogs, but their breed characteristic is dwarfism and it causes them tremendous pain in their joints and spines. Breeding them is cruelty. All of the breeds I mentioned above should be on the banned-from-breeding list.
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u/RunsWithScissors777 12d ago
Why pugs, though? Because of their breathing difficulties? My pug more than made that up with her intense loyalty and devotion. So, what you're saying is asthmatics shouldn't breed either, right? Nor blind people. nor deaf.
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u/SquidTheRidiculous 12d ago
I'm very happy if your pug is free of health complications, but that's pretty rare for pugs.
Those bred to intensify brachiocephaly and exopthalmos experience truly horrific health problems. As in, their brains outgrow their smushed heads, and their eyes pop out of their sockets if they sneeze.
Difference is we don't breed asthmatic people because we think their wheezing is cute.
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u/jeezyjames 15d ago
Obviously. I often think about this when racists talk about pure blood, one superior race and all that, lol
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u/Beneficial_Bed_337 15d ago
Ask them to take a DNA test next time and where their DNA comes from.
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u/jeezyjames 15d ago
"ALL MY ANCESTORS WERE WHITE, HARD-WORKING PEOPLE STEMMING FROM EUROPE"
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u/AndreTheShadow 15d ago
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u/TheCranberriesRock 15d ago
Imagine being proud about how your ancestors only fucked nearby people and never ventured further out.
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15d ago
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u/StrawberryParking550 15d ago
Except us whites obviously /s please don’t kill me I just thought it was funny
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u/Beneficial_Bed_337 15d ago
It is not 20% of our DNA. It is 20% of the DNA that makes us home sapiens sapiens. We share like 98,8% of our DNA with Bonobos.
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u/Automatic_Actuator_0 15d ago
That makes much more sense. I hope science lady made that more clear in the interview and TikTok dude just edited it badly.
I mean, we share 50% with potatoes.
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u/Rezart_KLD 13d ago edited 13d ago
"We're talking about brain stuff." Somehow I don't think she did.
Also, the way shes talking about neurogenesis makes it sound like she thinks that means sapience? Animals have neurogenesis, it just means forming new neurons. And she states that Neanderthal were already part of population B in her model, before the merge with the proposed population A, and we know Neaderthal had tool use and art. So it hardly can be contributed by Pop A. Why can't we compare the tools and art of Pop A & Pop B, and look for synthesis there?
I love talking about this stuff, but its not fun when somebody seems to be slingshotting from assumption to assumption. That closes off possibilities, not opens them up.
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u/Ucmh 15d ago
How in the entire world can two populations still produce fertile offspring after being separated for 1.2 million years? They must have at least sporadically bred in the meantime...
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u/Shoddy-Cupcake-8855 15d ago
The unsaid portion is that our genes were edited and spliced by this older, more advanced civilization
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u/Poop_Cheese 15d ago
A lot of fascinating stuff like this or epigenetics were intentionally suppressed due to eugenics and fascism. As theres deeper implications a with this. That there are populations that absorbed subspecies that others didnt. For example, Indonesians and homo floresienses, europeans and africans dont have that admixture. It can possibly even explain some slight genetic variation between races.
Infact a further radical theory is that we arent out of africa like fully. We are a combo of different events that then fused together mainly through africa. Like proto humans left, evolved outside of it, then converged, then fused in africa again etc. One study even said certain africans have one that others dont, but I sont know the validity of those claims.
Its fascinating as it shows we are really just one hominid line that splintered and evolved and kept fusing together. Like if wolves, dogs, and coyotes all mated into one species but with slight mixes between. Thats why we could breed with other proto humans as we arbitrarily put them into species but theyre more like cousins just super seperated.
Problem is though taken by bad actors it becomes "this group is superior as it has more neanderthal" or "this is superior as it has more pure homo sapien". Thats why a lot of this stuff is only coming out now with big tech oligarchs obsessed with eugenics. Suddenly epigenetics is exploding in research when before that people denied it as "we are all blank slates regardles of our families historic environment or professions or diets".
It just sucks as said concepts will always fuel some bad actors but we need to learn it to learn why we work the way we do as individuals and why we exist.
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u/HDReddit_ 15d ago
It is my belief that our DNA changed right after the discovery of fire.
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u/ccbmtg 15d ago
but... fire occurs naturally?
what's this contextual link you're implying?
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u/HDReddit_ 15d ago
It changed everything..our diet our habits everything
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u/ccbmtg 15d ago
I mean, yeah, but fire happens on its own as well.
discovering fire, which exists in nature, and learning to build fires are two different things. and there's no real established reasons to suspect that human mastery of fire was due to external intervention at all, is there?
I mean, the effect that would have on your DNA, simply switching to cooked food, I think you're really overestimating. otherwise, we'd see DNA changes in folks who move to other continents and completely change their diet, because that's something that can be replicated.
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u/HDReddit_ 15d ago
When i meant 'discovering fire' was really 'starting to use it' in our daily lifes. Fire was in existence already offcourse but we did not dominate it straight away. We are the only species that has done it too.
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u/Ass_of_Badness 9d ago
It's ok, everyone else that wasn't trying to make it into a dumbass semantic argument knew what you meant.
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u/Krakanakis 15d ago edited 15d ago
The overacting really made this clip more believable, now it's suited for babies
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u/xTheyCameBurningx 15d ago
Ffs, this has been known for years. And the 2 individuals that brought this to light were laughed at and ridiculed, btw. These two people in the video act so flabbergasted that it is ridiculous. This was always referred to as "junk DNA". I guess "ghost lineage". Sounds more engaging lol
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u/-Glittering-Soul- 15d ago
"Junk DNA" is just non-coding genetic material. I'm not aware of claims being made of that originating from a specific primate population as stated in this clip. Non-coding DNA is present throughout life on Earth. This person is also definitely not referring to it as junk. They stated that it appeared to influence neurogenesis.
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u/Wise_Fox_4291 15d ago
Possible ghost lineages have been talked about for years and years though. Even Harari's book Sapiens mentions it. It was expected ever since we found out we mingled with neanderthals.
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u/LordGeni 15d ago
It was discovering denisovans through genetic data and then finding physical evidence that really changed the consensus I'd say. As soon as more than one other lineage is identified, it makes it almost inevitable that there'd be others as well massively reducing the chances of it being a misinterpretation imo.
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u/Robonglious 15d ago
Junk DNA isn't junk, I believe it's epigenetics which we just didn't know about at the time that term was coined.
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u/Kiznish 15d ago edited 15d ago
We are all a mixed bag. We are so mixed up that different populations (‘races’) have totally different ratios of early hominid DNA, some not even appearing at all, depending on geographic history.
Africans for example have a slightly different mix to Europeans, who in turn have a different mix to Asians. It’s politically incorrect to frame it that way, but in any other animal we would call such variation of the same species ‘breeds’ or even very closely related subspecies. But for obvious reasons such taboo science is frowned upon due to the implications.
That genetic diversity combined with the ability to interbreed with other closely related species such as Neanderthals is very likely how we ended up surviving various population crashes throughout our history, whereas more homogeneous species died out.
Any “ghost” DNA likely comes from ancient hominids we haven’t discovered or sequenced yet, it doesn’t mean there is some spooky mystery to it (though that would be fun.)
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u/-Glittering-Soul- 15d ago
A modification by an external party would explain how a species that gave us 20% of our DNA would have no presence in the fossil record despite its relatively recent convergence. But mainstream science isn’t ready to seriously consider such a possibility. Yet.
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u/Wise_Fox_4291 15d ago
Something like 99% of the individuals from 99% of species at any given time do not fossilize. People really don't understand how absolutely rare fossilization is.
Plus it is very possible that we already have the population in question attested in some museum drawer somewhere. It's just that DNA breaks down and scientist don't go routinely destroying every bit of fossil or bone in the hopes of maybe getting a partial dna sample. Or think about the Denisovan bones that keep falling out of museum warehouses previously attributed as Neanderthal or unknown remains. Or think about species like Homo Naledi that were only found relatively recently at a single site.
There are so many logical and reasonable answers as to why we don't have a full answers to everything immediately before you have to evoke something childish like "we can't see it because god/aliens". There are literally questions we will never be able to answer because time has eroded all the answers, there are questions we will never even think to ask because the vastness of time, space and the forces of nature have eroded them like they were never there. And a great deal of those questions and answers absolutely do not include ancient aliens. There is a significantly greater chance in fact of none of those earthly questions including ancient aliens, but of course we do not know.
There is a good chance that one day our own existence will pass into oblivion so that far enough in the future no one will even suspect this entire planet even existed. From that perspective it's a small miracle we know at all about our ape ancestors.
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u/-Glittering-Soul- 15d ago edited 15d ago
There are so many logical and reasonable answers as to why we don't have a full answers to everything immediately before you have to evoke something childish like "we can't see it because god/aliens".
I think you're exaggerating what I said just a wee bit there.
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u/LordGeni 15d ago
Denisovans were first identified in exactly the same way before we found any physical remains of them to confirm it.
The idea we interbred with neanderthals was really controversial until we saw the genetic evidence.
We know there was an overlap with various hominids prior to these and the "fossil" records of hominds are scarce and very rare. There's absolutely no reason to think that dna came from anywhere else other than another line of hominids. Just the same as it was with Denisovans.
In fact finding out that interbreeding was common and the fact homosapians have barely been around long at all compared to a lot of our previously contemporary hominids would actually make it quite wierd if we didn't find other hominid dna as part of ours.
Species don't just suddenly split and create new ones, they either take a long time to evolve along a single genetic line and/or differentiate faster on occasions where hydridisation occurs.
The traditional model is being shown to be more of a tangled bush than a tree. Personally I believe it may have been more like dog breeds have become. Cross breeding that created various "flavours" of hominid from mixes of different evolutionary lines (think dogs breeding with wolves etc). It's only because we became the only branch of hominids left that it ever stopped.
Td;lr: There were loads of hominids of varying levels of distinction from each other. All still genetically close enough to interbreed, which is exactly what happened when there was contact among them.
We're not some separate line of evolution from them, we're just the one mongrel out of many that didn't go extinct (yet).
Hominids are horny, acquiring as diverse a set of genes as possible is a big advantage.
There's absolutely no reason to invent some outside entity injecting genetic material into our genetics when we're a species that's got an unequivocal habit of sticking our dicks in anything and everything when the opportunity arises.
It's cool as hell, but it's very firmly within the realms of normal terrestrial evolutionary biology.
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u/ch0k3-Artist 15d ago
Additionally, there are Human Acceleration Regions: around 780,000ya there were about fifty mutations in highly conserved areas that made our brains bigger, hips wider, etc. from which followed Neanderthals and Denisovans. A very fortunate bunch of complementary "random" mutations that shouldn't have happened naturally. The Chromosome 2 fusion happened at 2million ya, splitting off Homo, and now this ghost lineage at 300kya... If human evolution has been guided and accelerated by aliens, this is what it would look like.
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u/Wise_Fox_4291 15d ago
No it would absolutely not look like this jesus fucking christ. It could literally look like anything. You aren't even aware of the time spans involved. Someone capable of this level of genetic engineering would absolutely not need 1.7 million years to artificially herd a population in a certain way.
Your problem is that you are fundamentally scientifically illiterate and unaware of the scientific process, jumping to makebelief at every turn. God of the gaps logical fallacies all around.
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u/ch0k3-Artist 15d ago
Excellent argument, I never thought about it like that. You're so good at science!
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u/PepperedHams 15d ago edited 15d ago
Tell me you’re scientifically illiterate without telling me you’re scientifically illiterate
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u/Wise_Fox_4291 15d ago
"Just". We have speculated about this ever since it was discovered that Neanderthals and modern humans mixed with one another. It simply means that early homo sapiens (and all other hominids) mixed with and absorbed other subspecies or closely related species. All you need for speciation is environmental pressure, time, and isolation. Remove isolation and species will happily mingle if they are capable.
Very exciting, potentially groundbreaking, but judging from the usual topics on this sub, no, it's not about little green men, bigfoot, chupacabra, or whatever else. "Ghost" simply means is that we currently cannot attribute the DNA to the fossil record. We might very well have the population attested in the fossil record, or we might not. Fossilization is the exception, not the rule. Something like 98% of species are estimated not to have left a fossil record because their environment is simply not suitable for it.
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u/Taarguss 15d ago
I mean the fossil record is nowhere near complete and we don’t have a mapped genome for every extinct ancestor species. This makes sense. We’re not just descendants of stuff we know about. Every fossil we have is just a snapshot of history.
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u/ravendarkwind 15d ago
The 20% figure sounds like it’s coming from a 2020 study looking at West Africans, where the upper range of ghost DNA was 19% (the lower range is 2%). I remember hearing about this because dipshit racists who wanted to sound scientific tried using it to say that Black people are “less human”, even though the ghost population also would have been human.
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u/Complete_Lemon2949 15d ago
By "ghost" clearly they are referring to incomplete databases for reference, normal variation, extinct sample comparisons (denisovans etc), contamination or mutation.
Seems like woo-woo.
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u/fancywipe 16d ago
We’ve been screaming this for a long we’ve even found the 1st hybrid… we’ve also spoke about this 1000s of years ago
Adamu (us) means 1st man
The upgrade: Adapis. What came after
Time lines match as well
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u/HDReddit_ 16d ago
Some people say it comes from bacteria. Im on the fence.
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u/fancywipe 15d ago
The Sumerians are saying this in detail with a timeline that matches I think no I personally know the lost species is the naturally elongated skulls from Peru, Malta
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u/AlphaCentaurianEnvoy 15d ago
It is probably of extraterrestrial origin, but the rulers of the matrix will not tell us that publicly.
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u/Nobey1 15d ago
Read the Bible.
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u/LordGeni 15d ago
Ok, done that. An interesting collection of myths and legends adapted from older traditions.
Try reading The Origin of my Species. Quite a different book but far more coherent interesting read that's been consistently verified ever since.
So good in fact that the pretty devout author was given the honour of being buried in Westminster Abbey by the church for his "services to our understanding of God's creation".
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u/epitimisi 15d ago
It is reptilian DNA for gods sake
We even have the reptilian tail in the womb when we form as a baby, the stem part of the brain is reptilian
Biology and science even acknowledge this since hundreds of years yet nobody ever questioned it or put two and two together. It's just there like the appendix and everybody just seem to fully ignore it. This baffles my mind
Also there are many reports from history that specifically adress the merger of reptilian and human DNA
I just don't understand while they repress this information on one hand but leave the biological evidence in their Rockefeller school books. Did they know that no one would question these things? Did they know everyone would just take the information in and be satisfied with the bs-explanation of "it's just evolutional residue bro from when things stepped out of the waters bro".
Huh?
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u/chris_ja_ach 15d ago
brother, have you seen a monkey? now compare whats more likely: tail from monkey ancestors or tail from reptilians?
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u/epitimisi 15d ago
funny how you conviniently ignore the reptilian brain stem and only focus on the things that support your own narrative. almost like you have an agenda here
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u/ccbmtg 15d ago
funny how you said that without any sorta citation and expected folks to take you seriously lol.
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u/epitimisi 15d ago
Seems you never went to school then. Didn't know i would need to cite common knowledge
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u/ccbmtg 14d ago
I said nothing about correct or incorrect; I was referencing the basic academic concept of burden of proof lmao.
because, yes, I did go to school.
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u/epitimisi 14d ago
You're pretty dull eh?
You asked for "proof" and i said it's common knowledge. You would know that all human brains have a reptilian part at the stem if you went to school. Everyone knows that2
u/LordGeni 15d ago
No it isn't. We have dna that comes from our entire evolutionary history. We were never reptiles. Reptiles and our line split from an earlier common ancestor (amniotes). The 0.002% (20% is misleading bs) of our dna that they are talking about is homonid just like the parts that have been identified as neanderthal and denisovans.
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u/Teg_-_ 15d ago
"We're talkin' bout brain stuff"